Succour for the faithful and defeat for the
Moor: divine intervention in Jose 1 Luzan's
1
paintings for the Chapel of Nuestra
Senora
2
de Zaragoza la Vieja, San Miguel
de los Navarros, Zaragoza
Article
Published Version
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Lee, S. (2016) Succour for the faithful and defeat for the Moor:
divine intervention in Jose 1 Luzan's
1
paintings for the Chapel of
Nuestra Senora
2
de Zaragoza la Vieja, San Miguel de los
Navarros, Zaragoza. Bulletin of Spanish Studies. ISSN 14753820 doi: 10.1080/14753820.2016.1245028 Available at
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Succour for the Faithful and Defeat for the Moor:
Divine Intervention in José Luzán's Paintings for
the Chapel of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja,
San Miguel de los Navarros, Zaragoza
Simon Lee
To cite this article: Simon Lee (2016): Succour for the Faithful and Defeat for the Moor:
Divine Intervention in José Luzán's Paintings for the Chapel of Nuestra Señora de
Zaragoza la Vieja, San Miguel de los Navarros, Zaragoza, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, DOI:
10.1080/14753820.2016.1245028
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Date: 15 January 2017, At: 05:20
Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 2016
Succour for the Faithful and Defeat for
the Moor: Divine Intervention in José
Luzán’s Paintings for the Chapel of
Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja,
San Miguel de los Navarros, Zaragoza*
SIMON LEE
University of Reading
José Luzán (1710–1785) is best known, if at all, as the master of Francisco Goya
and it has been a commonplace of many past and present Goya biographies to
suggest how quickly the young artist moved away from his influence.1 In the
autobiographical fragment he contributed to the catalogue of the Museo del
Prado (then called the Museo Real), Goya, (writing in the third person) stated:
* This study was only made possible by the very generous help of Marcelino Sánchez
Muñoz-Torrero of Tekne Conservación y Restoración, Madrid, who supplied me with
technical reports and digital photographs of the restorations. Father Juan Sebastián Teruel
welcomed me to the church of San Miguel de los Navarros and graciously gave permission
for me to reproduce the photographs I took. My thanks are also due to Bernadette Devlin,
who gave valuable assistance during my research in Zaragoza, and to my former colleague
Eckart Marchand for his iconographic expertise.
1 The standard study on Luzán is Arturo Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán
Martínez (1710–1785) (Zaragoza: Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada de Aragón, 1986). See also the
catalogue of the exhibition held in the Sala Luzán, Zaragoza: Arturo Ansón Navarro, José Luzán
Martínez (1710–1785) (Zaragoza: Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada de Aragón, 1985). The
earliest biography of the painter was written c.1796 by the Dean of Zaragoza, Juan Antonio
Hernández Pérez de Larrea, whose ‘Don Josef Luzán, pintor’ appeared as Appendix III of
Valentín Carderera’s edition of Jusepe Martínez, Discursos practicables del nobilísimo arte de la
pintura (Madrid: Real Academia de San Fernando, 1866), 208–11. Another valuable early source
is Juan Agustín Céan Bermúdez, Diccionario histórico de los mas ilustres profesores de las bellas
artes en España, 6 vols (Madrid: Real Academia de San Fernando, 1800), III, 55–57, written
from notes provided by Luzán’s son, Ignacio, a successful lawyer who also became mayor of Jaca.
ISSN 1475-3820 print/ISSN 1478-3428 online/16/00/000001-21
© 2016 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14753820.2016.1245028
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which
permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
2
BSS, (2016)
SIMON LEE
‘Fué discípulo de Don José Luzán en Zaragoza, con quien aprendío los principios,
haciéndole copiar las estampas que tenia; estuvo con el cuatro años’.2 However, in
the 1831 biography of Goya written by the latter’s son Javier shortly after his
father’s death, Luzán only received the briefest of mentions: ‘Estudió el dibujo
desde los trece años en la Academia de Zaragoza bajo de la dirección de Don
José Luzán y concluyó su carrera en Roma’.3 A later source, the painter
Bernardino Montañés, Secretary of the Escuela de Bellas Artes in Zaragoza,
related in 1869 that ‘[e]l célebre Don Francisco de Goya estudió seis años en
nuestra escuela de dibujo desde el 1760 hasta el 66 en que pasó a Madrid’.4
None the less, Luzán was highly regarded as a patient, methodical and
enthusiastic teacher who had been instrumental in establishing the
Academia de Dibujo in Zaragoza in 1754.5 In the four or so years Goya spent
with him, c.1759–1763, the young pupil received a sound basic training and
must have been introduced to the same Italian influences that the master
had experienced for himself while training under Giuseppe Mastroleo in
Naples and also visiting Rome.6 While the exact dates of Luzán’s Italian visit
are uncertain, it must have taken place around 1730–1735/6.7 While abroad,
Luzán was financially supported by the Pignatelli family, having first
entered the household of the Marqués de Coscojuela around 1727. The
Pignatelli were an influential Saragossan noble family, originally from
Naples, whose son Antonio had married the only daughter of the Aragonese
nobleman the Marqués de Coscojuela (later the Conde de Fuentes) in 1720.8
2 Luis Eusebi, Noticia de los cuadros que se hallan colocados en la Galería del Museo del
Rey, Nuestro Señor, sito en el Prado de esta córte (Madrid: Francisco Martínez Dávila, 1828), 67.
3 Diplomatario de Francisco de Goya, ed. Ángel Canellas López (Zaragoza: Institución
Fernando el Católico, 1981), Item CLXXVI, 516–17.
4 José Luis Ona González, Goya y su familia en Zaragoza: nuevas noticias biográficas
(Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 1997), 72–74 (p. 72). Ona González suggests that
the discrepancy between Goya’s account of four years of study and the six years mentioned
by Montañés is because between about 1763 and 1766 Goya also received tuition in Zaragoza
from Juan Andrés Merklein (c.1717–1797). However, there is no documentary evidence for
Merklein’s involvement in Goya’s training.
5 The petition for an Academia de Dibujo in Zaragoza was drafted on 16 October 1746,
but was initially denied since it was considered a threat to the city’s guilds of craftsmen. This
drawing school eventually opened in 1754. See Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán
Martínez, 43–46; and Arturo Ansón Navarro, Goya y Aragón: familia, amistades y encargos
artísticos (Zaragoza: Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada de Aragón, 1995), 23.
6 Giuseppe Mastroleo (1676–1744) was a pupil of Paolo de Matteis and was considered by
contemporaries to be one of his most faithful followers. His works also reveal debts to Francesco
Solimena. The corpus of his works has yet to be fully established and no monograph exists on
him. See Bernardo de Dominici, Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani, 3 vols (Napoli:
Ricciardi, 1742–43), III, 545–46; and Nicola Spinosa, Pittura napoletana del settecento dal
Barocco al Rococò, 2 vols (Napoli: Electa, 1987), I, 35, 82, 96, 138 and figs 166–68.
7 Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez, 22.
8 In 1730 the Marqués retired from public life and in return for a pension ceded the rents
from his estates to his daughter and son-in-law—hence Luzán’s Italian expenses came from a
DIVINE INTERVENTION IN JOSÉ LUZÁN’S PAINTINGS
3
After his return from Italy, Pignatelli patronage continued, and Luzán was
given lodgings and a studio in the family palace on the ancient thoroughfare
of Calle del Coso in Zaragoza.9 Later Goya, as Luzán had before him,
benefited from the support and patronage of the Pignatelli family, especially
that of Ramón (1734–1793), who became a significant Enlightenment figure
in Aragón.10 An honorary member of the Real Academia de San Fernando,
he is believed to have been painted by Goya around 1790.11
The placement of Goya with Luzán was not only an obvious choice given
the master’s teaching skills, but also a consequence of the close-knit
artisanal and artistic communities of Zaragoza. In 1743 José married
Teresa Zabalo, daughter of the local painter and decorative artist Juan
Zabalo (1684–1746).12 Luzán’s father, Juan Domingo, and three brothers,
Pedro, Juan and Raimundo, were all master gilders, as was Goya’s father
José, and it has been suggested that Goya’s father trained under Luzán’s
father. Pedro Luzán and José Goya worked together on the gilding of the
organ cabinet at the cathedral of Calahorra in the Rioja region in 1756, and
José was assisted in the work by his ten-year-old son Francisco.13
Pignatelli source. The initial connection with the Marqués de Coscojuela is best explained by
the fact that Luzán’s father came from La Almolda which was part of the Coscojuela lands.
On the death of the Marqués in 1745, his grandson Juan Joaquin Pignatelli inherited his
titles (see Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez, 20–22).
9 Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez, 22, 26–27. The Palace of the
Conde de Fuentes, located between the Convent of San Francisco and the Calle de la Moreria
Cerrada, no longer survives and its former site now houses a bank.
10 The Pignatelli family has long been identified as instrumental in Goya’s early career,
and the young artist had connections with at least two of the five adult sons of Antonio
Pignatelli and the daughter of the Marqués de Coscojuela. Goya studied at the Jesuit College
in Zaragoza under the fourth brother, José (1737–1811), who was canonized in 1954 for his
devotion to the preservation of the Jesuit Order. Ramón trained in the priesthood, and when
his ambitions at court were thwarted, he concentrated his efforts on improving his native
region. He was vice-chancellor of the University of Zaragoza and ordered the construction of
the Imperial Canal, the Zaragoza bullring and the Casa Misericordia (an orphanage and
poor-house). He also created the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País in Aragon (see José
Manuel Arnaiz, ‘Goya, Pignatelli y Azara’, Archivo Español de Arte, LXI:242 [1988], 131–40
[pp. 132–36]).
11 A copy of a full-length portrait, after a lost or unknown original, is in the Museo de
Zaragoza; the attribution of a bust-length in the collection of the Duquesa de Villahermosa,
Pedrola, Zaragoza has been questioned by a number of modern scholars. See Pierre Gassier
& Juliet Wilson, The Life and Complete Work of Francisco Goya (New York: Harrison House,
1991 [1st ed. 1971]), 99; Ansón Navarro, Goya y Aragón, 165–67; and Nigel Glendinning,
Goya: la década de los Caprichos. Retratos 1792–1804 (Madrid: Fundación Central Hispano,
1992), 118–19.
12 Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez, 16–18, 28–29.
13 At the death of Juan Luzán in 1772, Goya’s father was one of the executors of the will.
See Ansón Navarro, Goya y Aragón, 27; and Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán
Martínez, 19; see also Ona González, Goya y su familia, 48, where the cathedral’s organ is
illustrated.
4
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SIMON LEE
Though primarily artisans, the Luzán family belonged to the infanzón
class of Aragonese gentry. By the eighteenth century such noble lineage
was more a matter of status than of wealth and the vast majority of the
infanzón class worked for a living and their material circumstances differed
little from other workers. Goya’s family similarly claimed noble forebears,
and in 1792 the artist himself asked his friend Martín Zapater to make
genealogical enquiries to support these claims. However, evidence was not
forthcoming and in 1793 the search was abandoned.14 Through the
biographies of painters in Antonio Palomino’s El parnaso español pintoresco
laureado (1724), eighteenth-century Spanish artists would doubtless have
been aware not only of Velázquez’s success at court but also of his efforts to
prove his noble ancestry.15
As well as Goya, Luzán also taught Francisco Bayeu (1734–1795), a key
figure in official painting under the reigns of Carlos III and Carlos IV and
widely acknowledged as the first home-grown, late eighteenth-century
Spanish artist to challenge the hegemony of artists imported from France
and Italy to work for the Crown. Although the Bayeu family was of a higher
social rank, Luzán’s professional accomplishments and connections with
aristocratic patrons brought advancement and recognition. He came to be
on intimate terms with them and witnessed the will of Francisco Bayeu’s
father, Ramón Bayeu y Fanlo in August 1755.16
Luzán’s work is frequently characterized as a derivative combination of
the late Neapolitan baroque and of the emerging rococo, and thus distant
from native Spanish initiatives in court painting that emerged from the
1760s. Nevertheless, he was a highly successful and sought-after religious
artist and was appointed a ‘Pintor Supernumerario’ to King Felipe V in
1741, and later named the official ‘Revisor de pinturas deshonestas e
irrisorias’ for the Tribunal de la Inquisición de Aragón, although the exact
date of his appointment is not known.17 While this appears a somewhat
anachronistic post, Luzán’s nomination suggests both great orthodoxy on
14 Diplomatario de Francisco de Goya, ed. Canellas López, Item 124, 279, and Item
LXIII, 449–51; and Ansón Navarro, Goya y Aragón, 26.
15 Velázquez’s recognition by Felipe IV and his entry into the chivalric Order of Santiago
were documented for the first time in Antonio Palomino, El parnaso español pintoresco
laureado (Madrid: Viuda de J. Garcia Infancon, 1724), section XI, 350–51. This was Volume
III of Palomino’s treatise El museo pitórico y escala óptica, 3 vols, the first volume of which
appeared in 1715.
16 Arturo Ansón Navarro, Los Bayeu: una familia de artistas de la Ilustración (Zaragoza:
Caja Inmaculada, 2012), 16. On Bayeu, see also: José Luis Morales y Marin, Francisco Bayeu:
vida y obra (Madrid: Ediciones Moncayo, 1995); and Francisco Bayeu 1734–1795, exhibition
catalogue, Zaragoza, Centro de Exposiciones y Congresos and Museo e Instituto de
Humanidades ‘Camón Aznar’ (Zaragoza: Ibercaja, 1996).
17 Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez, 27–28, 34–35, 142. Luzán
was probably appointed as ‘Revisor’ in the mid 1750s.
DIVINE INTERVENTION IN JOSÉ LUZÁN’S PAINTINGS
5
the part of the diocese of Zaragoza and a determination to combat error. Such
concerns had been amply reflected in the book published in 1730 by the
Mercedarian theologian Juan Interián de Ayala (1656–1730), Pictor
christianus eruditus. sive De erroribus, qui passim admittuntur circa
pingendas, atque essingendas Sacras Imagines.18 Taking its lead from the
rather brief directives on the visual arts contained in the Council of Trent’s
1563 decree and from Francisco Pacheco’s 1649 El arte de la pintura, su
antiguedad y grandezas, chapters were devoted to the avoidance of
licentiousness and nudity in holy subjects and on remedial action for works
that contained doctrinal errors.19 However, there is no material evidence of
any interventions to correct ‘indecent’ works by Luzán. Additionally, he was
‘revisor y tasador’ for all works of art commissioned for Zaragoza’s two
cathedrals of El Pilar and La Seo and also performed this role for individual
parishes and confraternities. Here there is evidence of activity, and in
March 1757, he, with fellow assessor, José Ramírez (1705–1770), one of the
foremost eighteenth-century sculptors active in Aragón, ordered Ignacio
Ximeno to revise his sculpted altarpiece of Santa Barbara for the
Confraternity of the same name, in the church of San Pablo.20 While
Luzán’s duties for the Inquisition focused on the decorum and suitability of
religious imagery, his episcopal and parochial work apparently involved
questions of both propriety and professional standards.
Spanish scholars, notably Arturo Ansón Navarro, have established links
and points of comparison between the work of the master and his pupils
and have also located Luzán’s output in the context of artistic activity in his
home town of Zaragoza, then second only in importance to Madrid and
royal sites as a centre for painting.21 Considerations of Luzán’s artistic role
in Zaragoza and of his working relationship with Bayeu and Goya were
given great stimulus following the cleaning and restoration of his
18 References here are to the Spanish translation of Ayala’s book, El pintor christiano, y
erudito, ó Tratado de los errores que suelen cometerse freqüentemente en pintar, y esculpir las
Imágenes Sagradas, trad. Luis de Durán y Bastero (Madrid: Ibarra, 1782).
19 Francisco Pacheco, El arte de la pintura, su antiguedad y grandezas (Sevilla: Simon
Faxardo, 1649), Book 1, Chapter 11, ‘De la pintura, i de las imagines, i de su fruto; la
autoridad que tienen la Iglesia Catolica’. In Ayala’s book, Chapter IV of Vol. I, Book 1 is ‘Que
no solo se han de evitar las pinturas de cosas torpes, y deshonestas; sí que se ha de excusar
tambien, en quanto se pueda, toda indecencia, y desnudez en las Imágenes Sagradas’; and
Chapter VII of the same Book is ‘Que las Imágenes Sagradas, que dan ocasion á los rudos de
algun error peligroso, deben quitarse, y abolirse enteramente, si no se pueden enmendar con
facilidad’. For a stimulating discussion on the Council of Trent’s instructions on images, see
Pamela M. Jones, ‘The Power of Images: Paintings and Viewers in Caravaggio’s Italy’, in
Saints and Sinners: Caravaggio and the Baroque Image, ed. Franco Mormando (Boston:
McMullen Museum of Art, 1999), 28–48 (pp. 28–29).
20 Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez, 35.
21 Arturo Ansón Navarro, ‘La pintura rococó en España’, in Cuadernos de Arte Español,
100 vols (Madrid: Historia 16, 1993), XCVI, 6–8, 20.
6
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SIMON LEE
decorations in the chapel of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja in the church
of San Miguel de los Navarros, Zaragoza.22
This was the church that Luzán himself attended and where he had been
baptized on 16 December 1710, and where his three children were also later
baptized.23 Situated in the second most densely populated parish of
Zaragoza and inhabited mostly by day workers, artisans and agricultural
labourers, San Miguel de los Navarros played a central role in the religious
and artistic life of the Aragonese capital.24 But more than that, the church
sustained the spiritual life of Luzán’s own family and, for the Confraternity
of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja, he created two historical narratives
that recounted episodes from the early history of the Confraternity and the
church that housed its chapel.
The two canvases that adorn the side walls of the chapel of Nuestra Señora
de Zaragoza la Vieja were completed in 1750 and it is very likely that they
were installed in time for the celebration of the Confraternity’s Feast Day
on 4 May.25 The chapel’s visual embellishment received a complementary
liturgical ornament with the publication of a laudatory novena in 1753.26
For each of these large paintings, approximately 6.50×4.90 metres, he was
paid one hundred ‘libras jaquesas’.27 Unfortunately the Confraternity’s
22 The project, costing €133,000, was funded jointly by the Department of Culture of
Aragón (40%), the Caja Inmaculada (40%), and the parish of San Miguel (20%). The
restoration work was undertaken by Tekne Conservación y Restoración, Madrid. The chapel
was re-opened in December 2005. The restorations also included the sculpted altarpiece of
the chapel: the Virgin of Zaragoza la Vieja, flanked by St Joachim and St Anne with St
Michael above (see Daniel Monserrat, ‘San Miguel de los Navarros recupera su capilla
principal’, El Periódico de Aragón, 30 December 2005, p. 54). On the church, see José
Antonio Duce, San Miguel de los Navarros (Zaragoza: Parroquia de San Miguel de los
Navarros, 2007). A virtual tour of the church, including the Chapel of Nuestra Señora la
Vieja is available at <http://antoniomayo.es/panos/2015/san_miguel_navarros/index.html>
(accessed 9 December 2015).
23 Luzán’s three other brothers and sister were baptized at San Miguel. Luzán’s father
and his two daughters who died in infancy were also buried there (see Ansón Navarro, El
pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez, 15–17, 141, 144–45).
24 Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez, 17; Rosa María Blasco
Martínez, Zaragoza en el siglo XVIII (1700–1770) (Zaragoza: Librería General, 1977), 38–39.
Francisco Bayeu was married in the church on 26 August 1759 (see Ansón Navarro, Los
Bayeu, 17, 26).
25 Fray Roque Alberto Faci, Aragon Reyno De Christo y Dote De Maria Santissima
(Zaragoza: Joseph Fort, 1739), Part 2, 23. An inscription in the sacristy, now disappeared,
stated that the decorations were completed in 1750 (see Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor
José Luzán Martínez, 84).
26 Fray Roque Alberto Faci, Mémoria de la aparición de Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la
Vieja, venerada cerca de esta Ciudad. Novena y devoto elogio suyo (Zaragoza: Revilla, 1753).
27 Although none of the Confraternity’s archives relating to this commission survive,
Mario de la Sala-Valdés evidently had access to them before their disappearance. See Mario
de la Sala-Valdés, Estudios históricos y artísticos de Zaragoza (Zaragoza: Imprenta del
DIVINE INTERVENTION IN JOSÉ LUZÁN’S PAINTINGS
7
membership archives do not survive and so it is not known if Luzán was a
member. But even if he were not, he certainly had very close links with it.
As recorded in the funeral records of San Miguel, his youngest brother Juan
was a member and was buried in the Confraternity’s chapel.28
The ancient Confraternity of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja
commemorated the miraculous apparition of a statue of the Virgin holding
the Christ Child to a shepherd during the persecutions of the local
population by either the fifth-century Visigoth or eighth-century Muslim
invaders at the village of El Burgo de Ebro, almost nine miles (fourteen
kilometres) from Zaragoza. A hermitage was erected on the site to house
the statue and a copy was later made for the Confraternity’s own chapel at
San Miguel de los Navarros, where a version of it is still to be found.29
This miracle was a continuation of the original story of the Virgin Mary
and St James the Greater, when on 2 January 40 A.D., the still-living
mother of Christ came to the dispirited saint on the banks of the Ebro river
at Caesaraugusta (the future Zaragoza) during his hitherto unsuccessful
mission to Northern Spain. Traditionally in Zaragoza it has always been
stressed that this was not merely an ephemeral apparition of the Virgin,
but her actual physical presence and an example of miraculous bilocation.
Standing on the marble pillar she brought with her, reputedly one of those
used at Christ’s Flagellation, she directed St James to build a church upon
the site. St James thanked her for the task, and in response Mary gave him
an image of herself and the Christ Child to place on top of the pillar.30 The
church (later cathedral) came to be known as El Pilar (The Pillar), and from
1754 a specially-built, domed and freestanding Holy Chapel was
constructed to designs by Ventura Rodríguez to envelop the pillar and
Hospicio Provincial, 1933), 167–68; Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez,
77, n. 37).
28 Luzán’s two other brothers were also buried in San Miguel, though not in the chapel of
Nuesta Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja. Luzán himself was buried in his then local parish church of
San Gil, Zaragoza (see Ansón Navarro El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez, 16–17, 42, 153).
29 Eduardo Torra de Arana, et al., Guías para visitar los santuarios marianos de Aragón
(Madrid: Ediciones Encuentro, 1996), 123–30. The late thirteenth-century polychrome wood
statue of the Virgin and Child from the Hermitage of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja at
El Burgo de Ebro is now in the permanent collection of the Museo Diocesano de Zaragoza.
30 This ancient legend was consolidated by the late seventeenth century in such books as
Antonio Calderón & Padre Geronimo Pardo, Compendio historico de la vida, hechos, y muerte
del glorioso apostol Santiago, unico y singular Patrón de España, capitán General de las
armas contra infieles principalmente de las Catolicas (n.p., n.d. [internal evidence indicates a
date shortly after 1658]), 18–19; and José de Lezamis, Vida del apostol Santiago el Mayor:
uno de los tres mas amados, y familiares de Jesu-Christo unico, y singular Patron de España
con algunas antiguedades, y excelencias de España, especialmente de Viscaya (México D.F.:
Maria de Benavides, 1699), 95–99. See also Erin Kathleen Rowe, Saint and Nation:
Santiago, Teresa of Avila and the Plural Identities in Early Modern Spain (University Park:
Penn State Univ., 2011), Chapter 1, ‘Santiago and the Shadow of Decline’, 20–47.
8
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SIMON LEE
house the statue.31 The dome was decorated in fresco by Antonio González
Velázquez in 1752–54 with the subjects of the Virgin’s apparition to St
James and the construction of the first church of El Pilar.32 Thereafter, the
subject of the Virgin appearing to Saint James became overwhelmingly
popular in Aragonese art, and Luzán, Francisco Bayeu and Goya all painted
versions of the story.33
By the 1730s the growing Confraternity required a dedicated chapel and
was initially offered the Capilla del Santo Cristo at the church of San Miguel.
This proved inadequate and so the chapel of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la
Vieja was constructed c.1739–40 as part of an expansion of the church,
thanks to a donation of adjacent land by Doña Rosa Azlor and her son the
Marqués de Castro.34 The place of honour was taken by a copy of the Borgo
de Ebro statue of the Virgin and Child, and José Ramírez provided the
surrounding putti, cherubim, clouds and dove of the Holy Spirit, as well as
the flanking polychrome statues of St Joachim and St Anne with St Michael
above. The parish’s own master carpenter, Antonio de Lorás (1695–1766),
was responsible for the magnificent gilt tabernacle (Fig. 1).35
For the chapel, Luzán created a pair of works which demonstrated his
abilities as a devout and committed Christian artist working in a location
that must have held special significance for him and his family.
On the left side wall, when standing in front of the altar, is The Apparition
of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja; (Fig. 2)—the founding event of the
Confraternity. Zaragoza’s Christian roots and its special protection by the
Virgin had recently been the subject of studies by Fray Roque Alberto Faci
(1684–1744), a Carmelite scholar who was librarian and later Regent of the
College of San José in Zaragoza. His account of the event that led to the
foundation of the Confraternity in his Reyno De Christo y Dote De Maria
Santissima (1739) almost certainly furnished Luzán with information for
his painting of the Apparition.36 Faci related that the Christians at El
31 On Ventura Rodríguez’s work on the Holy Chapel, see Thomas Ford Reese, The
Architecture of Ventura Rodríguez, 2 vols (New York: Garland Publishing, 1976), I, 71–81.
32 Michael Helston, Painting in Spain during the Later Eighteenth Century (London:
National Gallery, 1989), 34; José Manuel Arnaiz, Antonio González Velázquez: Pintor de
Cámera de su majestad 1723–1792 (Madrid: Antiquaria, 1999), 25–27, 88–89.
33 For Luzan’s versions, see Ansón Navarro El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez,
132, 139; for Bayeu’s version, see Helston, Painting in Spain, 38; and for Goya’s versions,
Gassier & Wilson, Francisco Goya, 90, 91, 93.
34 Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez, 77.
35 See Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez, 77; Belén Boloqui
Larraya, Escultura zaragozana en la época de los Ramírez, 1710–1780, 2 vols (Granada:
Centro Nacional de Información Artística, Arqueológica y Etnología, 1983), I, 353–55. The
figure of the Virgin is carved wearing undergarments only and actual ceremonial robes are
placed on her.
36 Faci, Aragon Reyno De Christo, Part 2, 22–23.
DIVINE INTERVENTION IN JOSÉ LUZÁN’S PAINTINGS
9
Burgo de Ebro were originally members of the city parish which later became
that of San Miguel de los Navarros, but had been expelled by the invaders and
only allowed to worship outside the city of Zaragoza.37 Early accounts also
maintained that the statue of the Virgin and Child that appeared was the
one that had formerly been in the congregation’s home parish in Zaragoza,
but which been removed by the heathens.38 Hence there was a cyclical
historical theme to the picture and one which explained the Confraternity’s
connection with the church of San Miguel. But not all the painting’s details
were provided by Faci’s account, and further embellishment may have come
from the Confraternity’s own traditions.
Figure 1
Altar of the Chapel of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja,
Church of San Miguel de los Navarros, Zaragoza.
Also visible are José Luzán’s fresco pendentives of Judith (left) and Esther (right).
Photograph by kind permission of Tekne Conservación y Restoración, Madrid.
37
38
Faci, Aragon Reyno De Christo, Part 2, 22.
Faci, Aragon Reyno De Christo, Part 2, 22.
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Figure 2
José Luzán, The Apparition of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja (1750). Oil on canvas,
650×490 cm. approx. Chapel of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja,
Church of San Miguel de los Navarros, Zaragoza.
Photograph by kind permission of Tekne Conservación y Restoración, Madrid.
DIVINE INTERVENTION IN JOSÉ LUZÁN’S PAINTINGS
11
Figure 3
José Luzán, The Apparition of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja. Detail of the statue.
Photograph by kind permission of Tekne Conservación y Restoración, Madrid.
Set upon a cloud, the miraculous apparition of the statue is richly clothed,
and both the Virgin and Christ Child wear identical crowns (Fig. 3). The
Virgin has a halo of stars and this motif is repeated in her blue cape. The
statue is surrounded by an angelic and cherubic host, striking a variety of
poses of donation and veneration. Beams of light radiate from the statue
and fall towards the shepherd. He sinks to his knees in obeisance, in a pose
similar to representations of St James when the Virgin came to him. His
faithful dog lies at his feet, though it looks away from the apparition,
perhaps to suggest that animals cannot perceive the divine. Opposite are a
group of seated and standing elders, a mother and infant son, and another
young child.
The infant, so sharply characterized that it might be a portrait, looks
out of the painting to engage the spectator. This group appears distinct
from the other witnesses and typologically each figure conforms to
representations of St Peter (with a tonsure), the Virgin (wearing a blue
dress) holding the Christ Child with St Joseph at her side,
accompanied by the Infant St John the Baptist and St John the
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Figure 4
José Luzán, The Assault on the City of Zaragoza by the Christian Troops of Alfonso I the Battler
with the Help of the Archangel St Michael (1750). Oil on canvas, 650×490 cm. approx. Chapel of
Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja, Church of San Miguel de los Navarros, Zaragoza.
Photograph by kind permission of Tekne Conservación y Restoración, Madrid.
DIVINE INTERVENTION IN JOSÉ LUZÁN’S PAINTINGS
13
Evangelist holding a pastoral staff. The implied presence of the Virgin
denotes constant solicitude for the Christian community and may also
be a suggestion of her continued and unbroken presence in Zaragoza.
As the altar included statues of St Joachim and St Anne, the emphasis
on the family grouping may also have a generational significance.
Behind the main group, at the extreme left, are a praying figure and a
huntsman holding a bow and with a game bag from which hangs a redlegged partridge. Both look intently at the unfolding miracle. At the
extreme right, a pair of horsemen observe and discuss the occurrence,
and their clothing and possession of mounts indicate a higher social
status than that of the other participants. The white horse of the
foremost horseman has a crescent decoration on the harness,
suggesting that the rider is a Muslim. His profound concentration and
the gesture of his right hand across his chest possibly indicates the
start of a conversion to Christianity. The setting for the event is close
to the river Ebro, with bulls and cows on the other side of the river, as
well as a fortified building—which perhaps suggests the distant city of
Zaragoza. The lack of church towers and the apparent presence of
minarets indicate Muslim occupation.
If the subject on the left wall of the chapel relates to the founding of
the confraternity of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja, that on the
right wall is concerned with the establishment of the church of San
Miguel de los Navarros. The Assault on the City of Zaragoza by the
Christian Troops of Alfonso I the Battler with the Help of the Archangel
St Michael (Fig. 4) depicts an attack on the substantial defensive walls
of the city, the core of which dated from Roman times. Zaragoza and its
surrounding region had been conquered by the Moors in the eighth
century, and in 1100 were seized by the Almoravid Muslims. Although
the breach in the wall shown here appears to make the fall of the city
imminent, the occupiers were actually starved into submission and
forced to surrender on 11 December 1118, after a siege that had begun
on 22 May of that year.39 No historical accounts mention a dramatic
capitulation following an assault.40 Luzán invented a composite scene
that combined several episodes that took place at different times, and
also relied on the oral tradition and folk memory surrounding his parish
church and its origins.
39 José María Lacarra, ‘La conquista de Zaragoza por Alfonso I (18 diciembre 1118)’, in
her Estudios dedicado a Aragón (Zaragoza: Univ. de Zaragoza, 1987), 79–112. Although the
Muslims surrendered on 11 December, Alfonso did not take possession of the city until a
week later.
40 For an early account of the siege and capture of Zaragoza, see Jerónimo Zurita, Anales
de la Corona de Aragón, 6 vols (Zaragoza: Lorenzo de Robles, 1610), I, Book 1, 42–43. This is a
fuller edition of the work first published in 1562.
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At the Council of Toulouse, held early in 1118, French and Spanish
bishops declared a holy crusade to banish the Muslims from Christian
Spain, and Alfonso was joined by troops from Southern and Northern
France and the Basque kingdom of Navarre.41 Legend also maintained
that these latter forces were encouraged by the apparition of St Michael,
then the patron saint of the Basque region.42 These allies from Navarre
were the reason the church was called San Miguel de los Navarros, as
traditionally its site was close to an area of the old city wall that was
breached by the soldiers of Navarre during the siege. Initially Alfonso
erected a hermitage on the site and this became the parish in the
thirteenth century.43 In the painting’s middle-ground the Navarrese troops,
identified by their banner with its arms of chains in saltire, attack the city
walls under a rain of Muslim arrows from the battlements above, and
protect themselves by forming their shields into the classic Roman
defensive manoeuvre of the ‘Testudo’ or ‘Tortoise’. This group is loosely
derived (in reverse) from engravings of scene LXXI from Trajan’s Column,
with the addition of a range of morion helmets worn by the besiegers.44
Luzán depicted a banner from his own times, since chains only became
associated with the arms of Navarre after the Battle of Las Navas de
Tolosa (1212), when Sancho VII of Navarre broke the chains surrounding a
Moorish camp.45 Behind the shields a further group of soldiers attack
another part of the walls under the French crusaders’ banner of a red cross
on a white background, a reminder of the presence of French forces as
allies of Alfonso.46 At the left are the troops of Aragón with their banner,
which has the emblem of the Cross of Saint George or Cross of Alcoraz,
41 Lacarra, ‘La conquista de Zaragoza’, 94–99; Joseph F. O’Callaghan, Reconquest and
Crusade in Medieval Spain (Philadelphia, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 37; Clay
Stalls, Possessing the Land: Aragon’s Expansion into Islam’s Ebro Frontier under Alfonso the
Battler, 1104–1134 (Leiden/New York/Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1995), 36–40.
42 Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez, 78. In Western Europe,
Saint Michael became identified as holy leader in battle following his three apparitions to
the Bishop of Sipontum in Apulia, the last of which took place on 29 September, 493. This
was the first synthesis of heavenly and earthly military service, of militia Dei and militia
saecularis (see Carl Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade [New Jersey: Princeton
U. P., 1977], 20–21).
43 Ansón Navarro, El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez, 78.
44 Numerous engravings of this scene were available, notably in Bernard de Montfaucon,
L’Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures, 5 vols (Paris: Florentin Delaune, Hilaire Foucart,
et al., 1719), IV, part 1, plate 92.
45 Fragments of the chains are kept in the Capilla de San Agustín, Real Colegiata de
Roncesvalles.
46 Troops from the French side of the Pyrenees-Gascony and Aquitaine, as well as
Normandy, fought with Alfonso, many of whom had gone on the First Crusade (see Stalls,
Possessing the Land, 19–21, 36–38; Derek Lomax, The Reconquest of Spain [London/
New York: Longman, 1978], 84).
DIVINE INTERVENTION IN JOSÉ LUZÁN’S PAINTINGS
15
Figure 5
José Luzán, The Assault on the City of Zaragoza by the Christian Troops
of Alfonso I the Battler with the Help of the Archangel St Michael.
Detail of Alfonso the Battler, Gaston IV of Béarn and Centulle of Bigorre.
Photograph: Simon Lee.
surrounded by four Moorish heads.47 Almost all of the Muslim defenders have
crescent decorations on the top of their headdresses, and from the main
defensive tower a triple crescent banner flies, with a crescent finial. The
city and its defenders are depicted in an almost diagrammatic manner with
little concern for scale or perspectival recession.
Alfonso stands at the left of centre, wearing an elaborately plumed helmet
with a partial circlet crown. He draws his sword and watches the progress of the
assault while accompanied by three other commanders. The most prominent of
them, who stands directly behind Alfonso, is likely to be Gaston IV of Béarn.
Gaston was Alfonso’s main confidant and right-hand man, and his
experience on the First Crusade and in constructing and employing wooden
siege engines was invaluable at Zaragoza. He also brought many troops with
him and was later rewarded by Alfonso with the lordship of Zaragoza and
other titles.48 The figure behind Gaston, looking intently at him, is probably
his half-brother Centulle of Bigorre, holding an elaborate crescent-bladed
47 This coat of arms recalls a previous Christian victory in 1096 against the Muslims in
the hills of Alcoraz by Alfonso’s brother and predecessor Pedro I.
48 Stalls, Possessing the Land, 40, 124–25.
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SIMON LEE
spear as an emblem of rank (Fig. 5). The identification of the other figure at the
far left, who also holds a spear, must remain uncertain, but he is possibly
Arnaldo of Lavedan or Gaston Fort, prominent Southern French nobles
whose presence at the siege is attested in a contemporary Béarnaise
document.49 All of these figures wear vaguely antique Roman costume with
sandals and loricae segmentatae over tunics.
In the central upper section, St Michael, the patronal saint of the church,
who also appears in the upper level of the chapel’s sculpted altarpiece, holds a
sword in his right hand and a banner in his left with the monogram of the
Virgin Mary, formed of the letters ‘A’ and ‘M’, standing for ‘Ave Maria’ as
spoken by the Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation, and which formed
the opening phrase of the Angelic Salutation. At his side, an angel and a
cherub carry a shield with the motto ‘QUIS UT DEUS’—the Latin form of
the Hebrew Mi-Cha-El (‘Who is as God’). The shield emits golden rays that
burn a breach in the city walls and thus both paintings include the
dramatic intervention of divine light. Such an image of St Michael was first
established by his appearance at Monte Gargano on 8 May 663, where he
brought down a storm from on high and slew the Byzantine Greek enemy
with lightning from heaven.50 He is thus the military champion of
Christianity who assures victory for his followers, but his role as the
receiver of the souls of the dead is also invoked, since the left side of the
painting refers to the heroic sacrifice of Christian soldiers in the Reconquest.51
In the upper left an angel supports a male figure, presumably a soldier
who had died in the assault, and this man looks towards a cherub holding a
palm. Above, a group of cherubs carry palms for other martyred Christian
soldiers. At the far left, another cherub dangles a laurel crown anticipating
Alfonso’s success. The papacy equated the struggle against Islam in Spain
with the Eastern crusades, and during the siege, the Archbishop-elect of
Zaragoza, Pedro (or Pierre) de Librana visited Pope Gelasius II in Southern
France, which resulted in the issue of the bull Litteras devotionis on 10
December 1118.52 This declaration, as with previous bulls related to the
49 Lacarra, ‘La conquista de Zaragoza’, 93–94.
50 Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, 21.
51 Christian tradition gives St Michael four offices: to fight against Satan, to rescue the
souls of the faithful from the devil, to call away from earth and bring men’s souls to judgment,
and to be the champion of God’s people. From the eleventh century onwards the cult of St
Michael the warrior was common in Western Europe, and he was frequently invoked during
military expeditions against the infidel and his image used on banners (see O’Callaghan,
Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain, 194; Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of
Crusade, 45, 52, 100). On St Michael and his significance for the Spanish Church and Crown,
see Niria E. Leyva-Gutiérrez, ‘Conflict and Imagery: Saint Michael and Ecclesiastical Power
in New Spain’, Hispanic Research Journal, 15:4 (2014), 422–44 (pp. 425–27).
52 See Documentos para el estudio de la Reconquista y repoblación del valle del Ebro, ed.
José María Lacarra (Zaragoza: Anubar, 1985); the Bull is No. 54, 67–68. See also O’Callaghan,
DIVINE INTERVENTION IN JOSÉ LUZÁN’S PAINTINGS
17
fight for the Holy Land, conceded plenary indulgences and added: ‘If anyone of
you receives penance for his sins and is killed in this expedition, we, by the
merits of the saints and the prayers of the whole Catholic church, absolve
you from your sins’.53 A plenary indulgence meant the remission of the
entire temporal punishment due to sin so that no further expiation was
required in Purgatory. Thus immediate entrance to Heaven and life eternal
was guaranteed for the fallen.
Librana, who became Archbishop of Zaragoza soon after the surrender,
delivered the bull to the Christian army surrounding the city. He appears
at the right, giving a benediction, and is anachronistically depicted
wearing eighteenth-century episcopal robes. At his feet are a pile of
blessed weapons—a quiver of arrows, a bow, a shield and a battering ram.
Behind him, a young vestmented priest carries a processional crucifix. The
cross, of course, became the emblem of crusaders, and liturgical
observation was also an important element in the fight against the
Muslims. Battlefield prayers and processions for divine aid and victory
frequently took place, as well as the celebration of Mass, taking of the
Eucharist, and absolution of sins.54 The painting thus simultaneously
commemorated the origins of the parish, Zaragoza’s salvation by a pious
Christian army led by a united church and monarch, and celebrated the
military and spiritual faculties of the church’s patronal saint.
Luzán’s decorations in the chapel were completed with frescoes of Old
Testament heroines in the four pendentives which support the dome.55
Ansón Navarro considers that these pendentives may be a little later than
the canvases on the side walls, and dates them to c.1753–1755, since he
detects the influence of Antonio González Velázquez who, as noted above,
came to Zaragoza to paint the dome of the Holy Chapel in the cathedral of
El Pilar late in 1752.
All four female figures can be considered prefigurations of Our Lady, as
saviours of their people. Either side of the main altar are Judith (left) and
Esther (right), and on the entrance side Jael (left) and Deborah (right).
Judith, slayer of the Assyrian Holofernes stands holding the severed head
of her foe in her left hand, a blood-stained sword in the right, and is
Reconquest and Crusade, 37. Librana was one of several French churchmen appointed to sees in
lands reconquered by Alfonso (see Stalls, Possessing the Land, 225).
53 ‘[…] siquis uestrum accepta de peccatis suis penitencia in expeditione hac mortus
fuerit, Nos eum santctorum meritis et tocius Catholice Ecclesie precibus a suorum uniculis
peccatorum absoluimus’ (see Documentos para el estudio de la Reconquista, ed. Lacarra, 69;
O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, 37; see also Stalls, Possessing the Land, 37–38, 40).
54 O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, 187.
55 My thanks are due to D. Vicente Domingo López, Jefe del Servicio de Conservación y
Restauración del Patrimonio Cultural, Gobierno de Aragón, for confirming the medium of these
pendentives.
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Figure 6
José Luzán, Judith (c.1753–55). Fresco pendentive, height approx. 160 cm.
Chapel of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja,
Church of San Miguel de los Navarros, Zaragoza.
Photograph: Simon Lee.
Figure 7
José Luzán, Esther (c. 1753–55). Fresco pendentive, height approx. 160 cm.
Chapel of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja,
Church of San Miguel de los Navarros, Zaragoza.
Photograph: Simon Lee.
DIVINE INTERVENTION IN JOSÉ LUZÁN’S PAINTINGS
Figure 8
José Luzán Deborah (c.1753–55). Fresco pendentive, height approx. 160 cm.
Chapel of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja,
Church of San Miguel de los Navarros, Zaragoza.
Photograph: Simon Lee.
Figure 9
José Luzán, Jael (c.1753–55). Fresco pendentive, height approx. 160 cm.
Chapel of Nuestra Señora de Zaragoza la Vieja,
Church of San Miguel de los Navarros, Zaragoza.
Photograph: Simon Lee.
19
20
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SIMON LEE
attended by a putto with a palm (Fig. 6).56 Esther, wife of King Ahasuerus of
Persia holds a sceptre while a putto holds her crown. With her right hand she
gestures to the side—presumably a reference to her exposition of the
treachery of the king’s advisor Haman, which freed Jews from persecution
and also saved the life of her cousin and stepfather Mordecai (Fig. 7).57
Deborah, prophetess and matriarch of Israel, sits in judgment beneath her
palm tree, holding the open book of Judges in her right hand and with a
shield at her left. A putto at her right raises up a sword and helmet
(Fig. 8).58 According to the Book of Judges, Deborah foresaw the victory of
the Israelites over their Canaanite foes, and Jael killed the fugitive
Canaanite general Sisera by driving a tent-peg through his temple. Jael is
depicted holding a hammer or mallet while a winged putto offers her a tentpeg (Fig. 9).59 All of these figures rest on clouds that spill out beyond the
frames of the pendentives, which themselves terminate in cartouche-like
pilaster capitals carrying the name of the heroine.
In a local sense, Luzán provided an example of a successful and
respected religious painter, but the ambitions of his major pupils
Francisco Bayeu and Francisco Goya lay beyond such provincial acclaim.
By 1754 Bayeu had moved on to study under Antonio González
Velázquez, first in Zaragoza and then Madrid.60 Yet his four years with
Luzán still formed the basis of his style, and The Tyranny of Geryon, his
1757 attempt to win the special prize at the Real Academia de San
Fernando, continued to show considerable debts to his first teacher.61 The
success of the painting paved the way for Bayeu’s career-long involvement
with the Real Academia and also brought him to the attention of the royal
court. In 1762, Anton Rafael Mengs, First Court Painter to Carlos III,
visited Bayeu in Zaragoza and in the following year invited him to
Madrid to work as his assistant.62
56 The account of Judith and Holofernes comes from the deuterocanonical Book of Judith,
Chapters 12–14. The beheading of Holofernes is found in 13:6–9. According to this account,
Judith’s weapon was a fauchion or scimitar, but Luzán clearly depicts a sword.
57 Esther’s stand against Haman and the intrigues within the court of her husband occur
in the deuterocanonical Book of Esther, Chapters 2–7. The fall and execution by hanging of
Haman are recounted in 7:5–10.
58 Deborah’s actions are found in Judges 4:4–9 and 5:1–15.
59 Judges 4:17–22.
60 Ansón Navarro, Los Bayeu, 20–23; Francisco Bayeu 1734–1795, 10–11.
61 Bayeu’s work on copper was the only entry for a prize sponsored by José de Vargas
Casasola, a priest from Medina del Campo (Valladolid) (see Painting in Spain in the Age of
Enlightenment: Goya and His Contemporaries, ed. Ronda Kasl & Susan L. Stratton
[Indianapolis: Museum of Art/New York: The Spanish Institute, 1997], 219–22; Ansón
Navarro, Los Bayeu, 23; Francisco Bayeu 1734–1795, 128).
62 Painting in Spain in the Age of Enlightenment, ed. Kasl & Stratton, 220; Ansón
Navarro, Los Bayeu, 33–36; Francisco Bayeu 1734–1795, 25.
DIVINE INTERVENTION IN JOSÉ LUZÁN’S PAINTINGS
21
As Bayeu before him, Goya tried to win student competitions at the Real
Academia de San Fernando in 1763 and 1766, and his self-financed trip to
Italy, 1770–71, demonstrated his desire to move beyond Zaragoza’s
artistic horizon. Immediately after his return from Italy, Goya was
gaining recognition and making a secure living. Indeed his 1775 tax
returns show that he was earning more than Luzán,63 and shortly
afterwards his growing reputation resulted in an invitation from Mengs
to work for the Real Fábrica de Tapices de Santa Bárbara in Madrid.64 In
July 1780 Goya was unanimously elected to the Real Academia de San
Fernando, and in 1789, soon after accession of Carlos IV, he was
appointed pintor de cámara.65
Unlike Bayeu and Goya, Luzán spent the whole of his working life in the
province of Aragón. But though a marginal figure in late eighteenth-century
Spanish painting, and one who is unrepresented in the Museo del Prado,
the restorations at San Miguel de Los Navarros confirm his deserved
reputation as the leading religious painter of his time in Zaragoza.*
63 Arturo Ansón Navarro, ‘Datos socioeconómicos sobre los pintores zaragozanos del siglo
XVIII y sus talleres’, in Jornadas sobre el estado actual de los estudios sobre Aragón, 2 vols
(Zaragoza: Univ. de Zaragoza, Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación, 1982), II, 634–37;
Ansón Navarro El pintor y profesor José Luzán Martínez, 56; José Gudiol, Goya, 1746–1828,
2 vols (Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafa, 1985), I, 20.
64 Goya left Zaragoza with his family on 3 January 1775 and arrived in Madrid a week
later. This information is recorded in his ‘Cuaderno Italiano’, folios 46 and 47. It is so called
because it was of Italian manufacture, and almost certainly purchased and begun while he
was in Italy. Goya continued to use it in Zaragoza after his return, and also entered personal
details and family records within. The ‘Cuaderno Italiano’ was published in facsimile, with a
separate volume of introduction, notes and transcription: Francisco Calvo Serraller, Manuela
B. Mena Marqués & Jesús Urrea, El cuaderno Italiano 1770–1786: los orígenes del arte de
Goya (Madrid: Museo del Prado, 1994).
65 María Ángeles Blanca Piquero López & Mercedes González de Amezúa del Pino, Los
Goyas de la Academia (Madrid: Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando & Barcelona/
Madrid: Lunwerg, 1996), 11; and Diplomatario de Francisco de Goya, ed. Canellas López, Item
152, 295, and Item XLIX, 440.
* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.